by Deborah Hale
Cecily secured hers in place. “I had no notion you were such an able conspirator, Sister.”
The nun shrugged her wide shoulders. “There are many things you would little guess about me, Mistress Cecilia. Back at Wenwith, I know you thought me an ogre, preaching strict adherence to rules. I meant it for you own good, though.”
“Thank you for helping us.” Cecily did not trust herself to say more.
Sister Gertha swept a critical eye over John. “The veil does help. Tuck each hand into your opposite sleeve so no one will wonder at the hair on them. Now, heads down modestly and follow me. If we are stopped on any account, let me do the talking.”
“Aye, Sister.” Cecily fell in step behind her. Glancing back, she saw John bringing up the rear.
After a word with the portress, they were soon beyond the cloisters of Boulton and on the road to Cirencester. Cecily tensed every time a rider overtook them, but no one paid much heed to three nuns. As they entered town by one of the old Roman roads that crossed through it, she overheard someone inquiring loudly about an abducted bride.
So that was the story Lord Ranulf had put out. It took every crumb of willpower to keep from proclaiming that Beauchamp himself had been her abductor.
They passed through town unmarked and out the other side, with the Gloucester border beckoning them.
“Here I must take my leave of you and head south,” said Sister Gertha when they reached the next crossroad. “Can you get the rest of the way on your own?”
“Aye, Sister.” John thrust out his hand and the two exchanged a hearty shake. “I promise I will see Mistress Tyrell safely to her destination.”
By the look she gave him, it was clear Sister Gertha guessed he would be one of Cecily’s greatest threats. To her peace of mind, at least.
Wenwith’s Mistress of Novices drew Cecily aside for a final few words of parting. “I was every bit as wild and adventurous as you in my youth, Cecilia Tyrell.” She glanced back at John FitzCourtenay and lowered her voice still further. “I paid a high price for my heedless ways. Don’t repeat my mistakes, child. Think before you act, else you may do harm that can never be undone.”
“I’ll try, Sister Gertha. Indeed I will.”
The nun dropped a brusque kiss on Cecily’s forehead. “See that you do, child. And may God go with you.”
Cecily watched her walk away until she was out of sight, prepared to wave if Sister Gertha glanced back. Mindful, perhaps, of the fate of Lot’s wife, she never did.
“Is it much farther?” To Rowan’s ears, the lass’s question sounded more like a plea.
“Not much,” he assured her. “Over this next rise and we should be able to see Ravensridge across the Vale of Stroud.”
Glad he would be to see it, too, after the past week. Buttressed from attack by his own stout walls. With plentiful food and drink. A bed where he could sleep secure and soundly. His own clothes.
“If I don’t soon shed this nun’s habit, I will roast like a joint of mutton,” he muttered aloud.
“It is hot,” Cecily agreed. “We are fortunate not to have been caught in bright sunshine.”
How like her to find the crumb of consolation in any predicament.
He chuckled. “That I will grant you. Now, if these clouds would only deliver on their promise of rain…”
“We might be soaked to the bone and wading in a sea of mud.” She paused for a moment on the rising road to catch her breath. “Let us make the best of our condition and not pine too much for a change that might bring worse fortune upon us.”
Steeling herself for the final effort, she set off again, walking more stiffly with every step she took.
The sight made Rowan long for another chance to throttle old Ranulf Beauchamp. Eager as he was to reach home, he slowed his pace to match Cecily’s. They struggled the final furlong, not sparing any precious breath for speech.
What was she thinking, though? Rowan wondered. Was she eager to reach Ravensridge and embrace her fate? Or was she tempted to abandon all her plans and responsibilities for his sake?
It seemed possible, judging by what she’d said and how she’d reacted to his overtures.
But he had been deceived before.
Could it be she was leading John FitzCourtenay on, pretending to care but resisting a true commitment, in order to secure his services as her escort? Before they reached Ravensridge, he must coax her into some kind of declaration. Otherwise he would never be able to trust the sincerity of her feelings for him.
Their steps weaving from the effort, they reached the crest of that last hill. Before them lay the Vale of Stroud, its fields long since harvested and gleaned. Livestock grazed on whatever remained, being fattened for the winter slaughter. Gnarled apple and plum trees drooped under the weight of their ripe burden of fruit.
The moist, heavy air oozed an oversweet fragrance of abundance that foretold decay.
Across the valley, on the opposite hillside, loomed the ramparts of Ravensridge. As ever, the first glimpse of it after an absence both beckoned and repelled Rowan.
Cecily slumped against him. Following her gaze, he could tell she saw the castle. And understood its import.
“There were times I wondered if we would ever reach here.” Was she trying to tell him something, or was she simply giving voice to the qualms she’d suppressed during their journey?
When she lifted her face to him, Rowan no longer needed to wonder. “I could not have made it this far on my own, John. Thank you.”
Pulling aside the half veil, she offered him a wan smile of gratitude.
A heavy drop of rain plummeted from the sky and embedded itself in the dust of the road.
Rowan pulled off his veil, then the head-rail and coverchief. “Beauchamp’s searchers would not dare venture so near Ravensridge. At least not in broad daylight.” He struggled out of the habit.
The warm breeze played over his bare chest and shoulders, like the breath of an avid paramour. More drops of rain kissed his thatch of sweaty hair. One trickled down his back to the waist of his breeches, setting him deliciously ashiver.
Cecily removed her borrowed head gear, lifting her face to the sky. Eyes closed, she seemed to savor the cool moisture from heaven. One raindrop landed on the tip of her nose, then glided down the indent of her lip. Was caught on the pink tongue that darted out. She made that little noise in her throat, the one she’d made in the priory cellar when he’d petted her breasts.
Like a flint struck to oil-soaked tinder, that faint sound kindled a bonfire of passion within Rowan. He could not remember when he had banked his desire for a woman so long without seeking satisfaction.
Memories from their journey stirred to life, adding fuel to a blaze that already threatened to flare out of control. Every glimpse of her body. Every touch, scent and flavor. And most of all, those sweetly bedeviling sounds that whispered of an answering hunger within her, even when her words belied it.
Catching her hand, he drew her into a grove of beech trees beside the road. So intent upon the tempest within himself, Rowan scarcely noticed the storm gathering force around them.
“Get you out of this.” He tugged the rusty black habit off of her, revealing the soft linen kirtle she’d been given at Lambourn. “Wouldn’t want folks to think I’d accost a nun.” When he laughed, his breath came ragged.
“Do you mean to accost me, Master John?” A merry challenge twinkled in her eyes, brown as freshly turned earth sown with gold dust.
Rowan read something else in her gaze—a hint of fear. Though not of him, unless he was mistaken. For him there beamed a deep, unwavering trust. Would that disappear when she discovered he was Rowan DeCourtenay—a man whose hands were stained with one wife’s blood already?
Before her feelings for him underwent that test, he had to be certain of them.
“Aye, I mean to accost you, Cecily Tyrell. But only if you give me leave.”
Her lips parted to reply. Rowan stilled them with his own. Full and r
ed as ripe pomegranates, they tasted just as sweet. Just as provocatively tart.
“Not with words,” he murmured between kisses. Words might lie, as he’d learned to his torment. Actions spoke the truth. “Show me whether or not you want me, Cecily. Show me whether or not you…love me.”
The rain gathered force, cascading down upon them. It played a whispering melody in the beech leaves. Like a heaven-sent baptism, it scoured Rowan clean of old hurts, old wrongs.
He drew back to take in the sight of her. What he saw stoked the fire that blazed in his loins. Drenched with rain, the light, pale linen of her kirtle was plastered against her skin. It clung bewitchingly to every succulent ripening curve of her flesh.
There was not enough rain in heaven to quench the heat of his desire for this woman.
His gaze rose to meet hers. To discover the answer to his question. What he saw confounded him.
Raindrops hung upon her lashes, like tiny perfect jewels. But the beads of moisture that glided down her cheeks had not fallen from the sky. If he dared to taste them, Rowan knew he would find them warm and salty.
Like a treacherous strike from behind, the sight drove Rowan to his knees. He grappled with Cecily to keep himself from pitching to the ground. His face pressed into the cleft between her breasts and his arms encircled her hips.
“Dear God, lass, don’t look at me so! Did I not say it would be your own choice? Cast me aside if you cannot love me, but don’t look on me with fear.”
She raised a hand to his hair, her fingers playing through it, gently urging him closer. For a moment her body seemed to melt against him, eager to mingle her flesh with his. It stiffened again at his words. Had he said anything so terrible?
Rowan gasped with shock and pain as her fingers twined in his hair and wrenched his head back.
“Damn you, FitzCourtenay, you are a devil! Why could you not just take what you wanted? Why must you make me choose? Can you not see it will tear me apart? Or do you not care?”
If she had suddenly drawn a dagger and plunged it into his bowels, Rowan would not have been more astounded. Or dismayed. The speed and intensity of his feelings for Cecily had rocked him to the core. He’d been so intent upon protecting his own heart, he had not stopped to consider the anguish he might be inflicting upon her by posing such a choice.
Before he could declare himself and set her mind at ease, she had pushed him away and run off down the road toward Ravensridge.
Picking himself up from the mud, he set off after her. Had he spoiled any chance he might’ve had with Cecily?
Rowan feared so.
Chapter Eleven
Was she running away from her only chance at happiness? Cecily feared so.
Between the steady downpour of rain and the vexing flood of tears that rose in her eyes, she could scarcely see the road before her. She could feel it, though. By turns, the mud sucked her feet down or forced them to skid out from under her. As long as she sailed this river of mud, it would eventually cast her up at the gate of Ravensridge, like a piece of flotsam.
What would she find when she arrived there? Cecily tried not to dwell on the subject lest her resolve weaken and she fly back up the road and into John FitzCourtenay’s waiting arms.
The questions continued to nag at her, like persistent insects whining in her ear. However he had reacted to the Empress’s edict, Lord Rowan had evidently decided to follow it. Else why would he have sent his brother all the way to Brantham to fetch her?
Would he change his mind once he discovered the bothersome baggage his bride brought with her? It would take more than an exchange of wedding vows for Baron DeCourtenay to gain control of Brantham. For that he would have to venture outside his stronghold in Gloucester, cross another county with a large enough force of arms to wrest the castle back from Fulke DeBoissard.
And if he did not succeed, he’d be saddled with a dowerless wife. One whose heart belonged irrevocably to another man.
What little she knew of her intended husband led Cecily to doubt he would accept such a situation with good grace. Not that she believed Ranulf Beauchamp’s horrible insinuations about DeCourtenay murdering his first wife…exactly.
There was some dark mystery, though, swathing the events of Lady Jacquetta’s death. One so impenetrable that even Lord Rowan’s own brother could not fathom it.
Cecily shivered.
The rain and wind had turned colder. The sound of the latter had risen to a high keening wail. A great hulking shadow rose up before her, suddenly shielding Cecily from the worst of the storm.
Ravensridge. She had reached her destination at last.
Swiping the tight sleeve of her kirtle across her face, Cecily smoothed back her hair as best she could. Would Lord Rowan’s guards admit such a bedraggled creature into his keep? Or would they laugh themselves hoarse at the very notion that she might be the Tyrell heiress?
There was only one way to find out.
With the edge of her fist, she hammered on the porter’s wicket beside the main gate.
“Hallo! Is anyone there?” Could they hear her above the high whine of the wind? “I pray you, let me in!”
Someone peered through the wicket.
“By Our Lady!” came a voice from within. “What are you doing abroad in weather like this, lass?”
“The storm gathered quickly and I was caught in it. I am Cecily Tyrell of Brantham. I have journeyed here to wed Lord Rowan, by order of the Empress.”
“What? All the way from Berkshire? On foot? By yourself?”
Cecily opened her mouth to say that she had been escorted by Lord Rowan’s own brother. She shut it again before the words got out. If she mentioned John FitzCourtenay, the guard would surely wonder what had become of him. In truth, Cecily wondered that herself.
She had half expected him to catch her up during the last league to Ravensridge. More than half hoped he might try one last time to convince her they belonged together.
Those thwarted hopes and the rain’s chill sharpened her temper. “Leave off with your questions until I am dry and safe within. Mark me, in a very few days I will be mistress of Ravensridge.”
“Aye, milady. Beg pardon, milady.”
The stout gates of the castle opened the merest crack to admit her.
Following the guard’s astonished gaze, Cecily glanced down at herself. Had she been prone to swoon, she might well have done so for shame.
The rain had drenched her kirtle, molding it to her body like a second skin and rendering the light, pale cloth all but transparent. Crossing one arm over her breasts and bringing the other hand down to screen her nether parts, she snapped, “Give me your cloak and be quick about it.”
His face the color of ripe cherries, the guard nearly strangled himself in his haste to doff his cloak.
Cecily threw it around herself, grateful for the warmth and the cover. “Now, can you take me someplace where I may prepare for my audience with Baron DeCourtenay? Are there any women of rank at Ravensridge from whom I might borrow suitable attire?”
“Beg pardon, milady, but Lord Rowan is not here. He rode out a fortnight since for the Devizes and hasn’t been seen, nor has he sent word, since. You’d best talk with Lady Aenor, his sister by marriage. She’s a mite smaller and stouter than you, but I reckon she’d see you clothed proper.”
“Sister?” The word stuck in Cecily’s throat like a fish-bone.
Was John FitzCourtenay already married? The bounder! Bad enough that he’d taken every opportunity to seduce his brother’s intended bride. But to have done it when he was not free to wed her himself…!
The outrage must have blazed on her face, for the guard stepped back from her. “Aye, milady. Widow of Lord Rowan’s brother, Baldwin.”
“Oh, of course.” Cecily’s bated breath came out in a hiccup of laughter.
How foolish of her to have forgotten the younger brother, now dead. And how disloyal. The John FitzCourtenay she knew would never have been capable of such perfidy.
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“Please send word to Lady Aenor that I would speak with her. I beg refuge at Ravensridge until such time as Lord Rowan returns or we can discover his whereabouts.”
“Very good, milady. I’ll summon one of the maid servants to show you the way to her ladyship’s bower.” The guard swept her one final glance from head to toe, an unspoken question in his eyes that Cecily could not read. “Welcome to Ravensridge, milady.”
Was she? Cecily wondered as a serving wench led her through the ominously silent great hall and up a flight of steps to Aenor DeCourtenay’s bower. Was she well come to Lord Rowan’s Gloucester stronghold?
Or ill come?
“Welcome home, Brother!” Lady Aenor gave Rowan the kiss of peace. “What ill befell you on your journey? I have been worried to distraction when day followed day with no word from you. Mind how I warned you that these are evil times, not fit for a body to venture abroad alone and unarmed. But you would not heed my warning. And now there is some mad creature arrived from Berkshire, or so she says, on foot and all but naked, ordering the servants about with the arrogance of Empress Maud, claiming she is to be your bride. At this rate, I shall need a sleeping draft before bed tonight, my nerves are that wrought up.”
The speech boiled out of her, making Rowan’s own heart gallop apace and his stomach constrict. When she got upset, Aenor reminded him of the strange holy men of Islam he had seen in the Outremer, who expressed their devotion to Allah by whirling and howling.
He held up his hand for silence.
“You were right, Aenor.” Might as well say it first as last and forestall more nagging. With wistful fondness, he recalled how Cecily had refused to say “I told you so,” after his plan to seek aid at Lambourn had gone so disastrously awry. “I had not fully grasped the lawlessness so rampant in England nowadays. I am only thankful to have returned to Ravensridge unharmed. As for Cecily Tyrell, we are to be wed, by Maud’s order, and I am willing.”
For once Aenor looked bereft of words. Rowan warmed to anything, even marriage, that would produce such an affect upon his sister-in-law.